by Dave Williams | Dec 3, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The state Public Service Commission (PSC) voted unanimously Tuesday to certify Georgia Power’s plan to build battery energy storage systems (BESS) at four locations.
The Atlanta-based utility’s proposal, which was approved without discussion, will add 500 megawatts of electrical generating capacity to Georgia Power’s energy supply portfolio. One megawatt is enough electricity to power 750 homes.
Two of the new BESS facilities will be built adjacent to both Robins Air Force Base in Houston County and Moody Air Force Base in Lowndes County. They will be co-located with existing solar facilities.
A third standalone BESS will be located at the retired coal-burning Plant Hammond in Floyd County. The fourth site will double the battery-storage capacity of the McGrau Ford Battery Facility being built in Cherokee County.
An agreement Georgia Power reached with the PSC’s Public Interest Advocacy Staff in October requires the company to submit quarterly reports while the BESS projects are under construction updating spending and the construction schedule.
by Dave Williams | Dec 2, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A group of 17 Republican governors has sent a joint letter to Congress urging passage of an updated Farm Bill.
The most recent Farm Bill, which federal lawmakers approved early in President-elect Donald Trump’s first term in the White House, expired in September. Different versions of a reauthorization bill are pending in the U.S. House and Senate, while Republicans and Democrats are divided over funding for food stamps.
The letter, dated Monday, cites “high inflation, high input costs, high interest rates, catastrophic weather events, natural disasters, regulatory uncertainty, and a growing agricultural trade deficit” as lending a sense of urgency to the need for congressional action.
“Our nation’s agriculture industry is in trouble, and if meaningful support is not provided soon, the well-being of the nation is at risk,” the governors wrote. “Reauthorization of a Farm Bill and immediate assistance in the interim will allow farmers and ranchers to do what they do best – provide for America and feed the world.”
Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp joined the GOP governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia in signing the letter.
by Dave Williams | Nov 29, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Tax breaks for farmers, higher weight limits for trucks, and reforming Georgia’s Gratuities Clause prohibiting gifts to individuals or businesses top a list of proposals a legislative study committee issued during Thanksgiving week.
The state Senate Study Committee on the Preservation of Georgia’s Farmlands unanimously approved 11 recommendations Nov. 25 aimed at slowing the conversion of prime farmland across the state to development.
“It’s not a simple solution,” Will Bentley, president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council, said after the study committee adopted its report. “It’s going to take a multi-faceted approach.”
Georgia has lost about 2.6 million acres of farmland during the last 50 years to residential and commercial development.
Along with losing farmland, the state also is losing farmers to retirement without a ready supply of replacements. There are more farmers in Georgia over the age of 65 than under.
Higher costs for farm inputs including seed and equipment coupled with foreign competition driving down crop prices are discouraging young Georgians from taking up farming.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to get young people back into farming,” said Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, a member of the study committee. “It’s almost impossible for a young person to break into the business.”
The General Assembly has taken several steps in recent years aimed at addressing the issue. Lawmakers passed the Freedom to Farm Act in 2022, making it harder to file nuisance lawsuits against farmers.
Last year, the legislature passed a bill raising the legal weight limits on commercial trucks hauling certain types of cargo in certain parts of Georgia as well as a second measure – the Georgia Farmland Conservation Act – establishing a $2 million state fund to pay farmers willing to guarantee preserving their properties as farmland.
This year, the General Assembly enacted legislation prohibiting foreign adversaries from buying farmland in Georgia.
The study committee’s 21-page report includes several recommendations aimed at easing the tax burden for farmers. Broadly, it calls for the legislature to continue providing the state income tax breaks Gov. Brian Kemp and lawmakers have been offering to all Georgia taxpayers, and for increasing the $2 million Georgia Farmland Conservation Fund.
Specifically, the report supports expanding the state’s Conservation Use Valuation Assessment (CUVA) program, which allows farmers who pledge not to develop their land to receive property tax assessments based on the land’s productivity value instead of its fair market value.
The study committee is recommending doubling the maximum acreage individual farmers may set aside for conservation from 2,000 to 4,000 acres.
The panel also suggested extending tax relief to farmers and timberland owners who suffered losses from Hurricane Helene by expanding state tax credits to recipients of state and federal disaster relief aid.
The 2023 truck weights measure raised the weight limit for commercial trucks from 80,000 pounds to 88,000 pounds but limited the higher weights to trucks hauling agricultural products – including livestock – and logs. The committee is calling for increasing the weight limit again and allowing that higher weight limit to apply to trucks hauling a wider variety of products.
The report also supports removing the sunset provision in the law, which calls for the measure to expire next July 1.
The study committee also is recommending amending Georgia’s Gratuities Clause, which supporters say discourages corruption in state government. Any individual Georgian or Georgia business that receives a gift from the state – such as a tax break – must demonstrate a benefit to the state in return.
Bentley said a case can be made that farmers generate a benefit for the state from tax breaks that allow them to stay in business.
“Producing food and fiber for the world is of the utmost public good,” he said.
But Bentley said his group is not calling for the Gratuities Clause to be eliminated because it has served the state well.
“We were more in the camp of looking at adjustments that can be made … a very narrow exception to a rule to keep farms operational,” he said.
The committee also is recommending an inventory of the growing acreage solar farms are taking up across Georgia.
While the acreage solar farms are eating up has become a concern, the main culprit behind the loss of farmland in Georgia is unplanned growth. The committee is suggesting that cities, counties, school systems, and local development authorities look to incentivize development along existing infrastructure patterns and look to redevelop existing properties rather than letting development sprawl across undeveloped land that could be saved for farming.
“We can’t just conserve ourselves out of this threat,” said Katherine Moore, president of the nonprofit Georgia Conservancy. “We need to be very intentional in how our communities grow.”
The study committee’s report now moves to the full Senate for consideration during the legislative session starting in January.
Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, the committee’s chairman, said several farmland preservation bills could emerge as lawmakers look to bolster an ag industry that generates one of every seven jobs in Georgia and produces an annual economic impact of $83.6 billion.
“Agriculture is the No.-1 business in Georgia,” Hickman said. “We’ve got to protect it.”
by Dave Williams | Nov 27, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Cumberland Island Museum is donating its entire collection to further knowledge of the ecology of Georgia’s largest barrier island.
The museum, incorporated as a nonprofit in 1985, houses a collection of thousands of items including marine and terrestrial mammals, fish, birds, mollusks, reptiles, and amphibians, as well as flora collected on the island.
“My hope is that these items will be reunited with the remainder of the collection that is already housed at the University of Georgia,” said Carol Ruckdeschel, the museum’s founder, who began collecting in the mid-1960s when she started visiting Cumberland Island as a Georgia State University student.
The collection expanded dramatically after Ruckdeschel moved to the island permanently in 1973.
Over the years, the museum has been used for scholarly research including research projects to tag sea turtles to track migratory patterns and monitor alligator and eagle nests.
Since 1990, the museum has published a quarterly newsletter summarizing Ruckdeschel’s latest findings and observations.
Big changes could be in the offing for Cumberland Island. The National Park Service (NPS) released a visitation plan two years ago that could double daily visitation to the island – accessible only by boat – from the current limit of 300 that dates back to 1984.
This fall, the NPS proposed four land exchanges at the Cumberland Island National Seashore the agency says would protect important parcels now privately owned from development.
Both plans have drawn opposition from environmental advocates worried they could threaten the island’s pristine character.
by Dave Williams | Nov 26, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has long contended that the Dominion Voting System machines the state uses are more accurate than paper ballots. Now, he has evidence to demonstrate that poiint.
A first-of-its-kind ballot-image audit conducted in all 159 counties after this month’s elections found discrepancies on only 87 of the nearly 5.3 million ballots cast across Georgia on Nov. 5. All but one of those discrepancies occurred on hand-marked paper ballots.
“The ballot-image audit shows again that the votes in Georgia were counted accurately, securely, and quickly,” Raffensperger said. “Our system works accurately and can be trusted.”
The audit examined all 1,955 races in every county in Georgia, including 295 state or federal contests and 1,660 local races.
The lone machine ballot found with a discrepancy occurred with a write-in vote in a local contest that was awarded incorrectly to a candidate on the ballot.
The audit found that the QR codes on paper backups to machine ballots were 100% accurate.
The use of QR codes has been criticized as confusing to voters. The General Assembly passed legislation this year eliminating the QR codes in time for the next election cycle.
by Dave Williams | Nov 26, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A nearly $6 billion federal loan will help electric-vehicle manufacturer Rivian restart construction of a $5 billion vehicle and battery plant near Covington, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., announced Tuesday.
The project was expected to create 7,500 jobs when it was announced in late 2021. But it appeared in doubt last March when Rivian unveiled plans to build its new R2 crossover models at a factory in Illinois instead of in Georgia.
“There was real concern last spring that construction would never start,” Ossoff told reporters Tuesday morning in an online briefing. “What we have now is a major step forward to make sure this plant is built in Georgia.”
At the time it was announced, the Rivian plant was the largest economic development project in the state’s history. However, it was surpassed five months later by an announcement that Hyundai would build a $5.5 billion EV plant west of Savannah.
The loan from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is conditional. Rivian must fulfill a number of commitments to the project for the loan to gain final approval. The loan is being funded through the Inflation Reduction Act Congress passed in 2022.
“We are excited to arrive at this important chapter in our growth,” said RJ Scaringe, California-based Rivian’s founder and CEO. “We are grateful for our strong partnerships in Georgia and will continue to work closely with them as we bring this landmark facility to life.”
According to the DOE’s Loan Programs Office, Rivian plans to produce its midsize R2 and R3 models first at the new plant. The project, due to begin operations in 2028, would support up to 2,000 full-time construction jobs and up to 7,500 operations jobs by 2030.
If finalized, the loan would support construction of a 9-million-square-foot facility to manufacture up to 400,000 electric SUVs and crossover vehicles annually.
President-elect Donald Trump has been cool toward electric vehicles and threatened to repeal a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 to incentivize the purchase of EVs.
“This Rivian plant is a crucial part of Georgia’s economic future,” Ossoff said. “I’ll oppose any effort to undermine Georgia’s economic development.”
